1. Iron-Doped MoO3 Nanosheets for Boosting Nitrogen Fixation to Ammonia at Ambient Conditions
- Author
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Enrico Traversa, Haoran Guo, Tingshuai Li, Yonglan Luo, Qiru Chen, Rui Song, Haohong Xian, and Jiaojiao Xia
- Subjects
nanosheets ,Materials science ,Band gap ,Inorganic chemistry ,Settore ING-IND/22 ,nitrogen reduction reaction ,chemistry.chemical_element ,02 engineering and technology ,010402 general chemistry ,Electrocatalyst ,ammonia ,01 natural sciences ,Redox ,electrocatalyst ,theoretical calculations ,Catalysis ,Ammonia ,chemistry.chemical_compound ,General Materials Science ,Doping ,021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology ,Nitrogen ,0104 chemical sciences ,chemistry ,Reversible hydrogen electrode ,0210 nano-technology - Abstract
Nitrogen can be electrochemically reduced to produce ammonia, which supplies an energy-saving and environmental-benign route at room temperature, but high-efficiency catalysts are sought to reduce the reaction barrier. Here, iron-doped α-MoO3 nanosheets are thus designed and proposed as potential catalysts for fixing N2 to NH3. The α-MoO3 band structure is intentionally modulated by the iron doping, which narrows the band gap of α-MoO3 and turns the semiconductor into a metal-like catalyst. Oxygen vacancies, generated by substituting Mo6+ for Fe3+ anions, are beneficial for nitrogen adsorption at the active sites. In 0.1 M Na2SO4, the Fe-doped MoO3 catalyst reached a high faradaic efficiency of 13.3% and an excellent NH3 yield rate of 28.52 μg h-1 mgcat-1 at -0.7 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode, superior to most of the other metal-based catalysts. Theoretical calculations confirmed that the N2 reduction reaction at the Fe-MoO3 surface followed the distal reaction path.
- Published
- 2021